Month: September 2015

High Court judge Jonathan Sumption has given his views to the Evening Standard on how fast the legal profession can or should move towards greater gender balance. In his view it will take a long time (perhaps 50 years, see below), and cannot be rushed without great damage to the system. I'm only going by the ES piece, which is risky. But assuming that the interview is a fair representation of Mr Sumption's views, I think it raises some very interesting questions. First, and most important, is the general issue of how far working practices - in this case, amongst the judiciary - are somehow fixed because of the nature…

No, this is not about the current migrant issue, dominant though that is in all of our minds. (It will, incidentally, be very relevant to see how well the competences of the Syrians are recognised, given that many of them are very well qualified, but that's another story.) It's about changes in the attitudes of Pakistani and Bangladeshi women towards employment. The Economist reports some very interesting changes in their participation rates. In the early part of the noughties, 31% of Pakistani women and just 21% of Bangladeshi women were in the labour market. Since 2008, these proportions have risen quite sharply - in the case of Bangladeshi women by 13%.…

High Court judge Jonathan Sumption has given his views to the Evening Standard on how fast the legal profession can or should move towards greater gender balance. In his view it will take a long time (perhaps 50 years, see below), and cannot be rushed without great damage to the system. I'm only going by the ES piece, which is risky. But assuming that the interview is a fair representation of Mr Sumption's views, I think it raises some very interesting questions. First, and most important, is the general issue of how far working practices - in this case, amongst the judiciary - are somehow fixed because of the nature…

No, this is not about the current migrant issue, dominant though that is in all of our minds. (It will, incidentally, be very relevant to see how well the competences of the Syrians are recognised, given that many of them are very well qualified, but that's another story.) It's about changes in the attitudes of Pakistani and Bangladeshi women towards employment. The Economist reports some very interesting changes in their participation rates. In the early part of the noughties, 31% of Pakistani women and just 21% of Bangladeshi women were in the labour market. Since 2008, these proportions have risen quite sharply - in the case of Bangladeshi women by 13%.…